Prince Chongzhen

Chapter 72: Surrender
January 5

Since the day Zhu Cilang sent runners to various places to deliver the message, the people of the counties and prefectures surrounding Yingtian City fled south with their families.

By the time Duoduo sent people to "recruit" strong men, there were only some old and weak people who were unable to travel far in counties such as Jurong and Jiangning, which were closer to Yingtian, while the young and strong had all gone south with their families.

As a result, the generals who failed to complete their tasks finally felt that they should make some suggestions to Duoduo after communicating with each other.

"Your Majesty, in the past two days we have searched the area within a hundred miles and recruited more than 3,400 militiamen."

After Tulai reported the gains of the past two days, he saw that Duoduo's face was unchanged, so he asked tentatively: "Your Majesty, how about we go further?"

More than 3,000 people is certainly a lot under normal circumstances, but it is a drop in the bucket in this battle.

In the minds of ordinary people, attacking a city is basically a group of soldiers carrying ladders to the edge of the city, then climbing up the city wall to seize the city gate.

But the battlefield is not as simple as the storytellers say. How could the defenders allow you to be so calm?
At this point, the role of the civilians comes into play.

If you want to climb the city, you need the help of equipment such as catapults, wooden curtains, ladders, etc. If you want to move the equipment to the edge of the city, you have to suppress the archers and firearms on the city. If you want to suppress the firepower on the city, you need to find a high point closer to the city.

At first glance, these steps seem to have nothing to do with the laborers, but if you break them down, you will find that the laborers are involved in every step.

It takes laborers to manufacture equipment, to cut wood, and even more to build an earthen city that is taller than the city wall. Even if all three thousand people were deployed to work on the equipment, it would take a long time, not to mention the extremely labor-intensive civil engineering project of building an earthen city.

That's why Tu Lai and others suggested going further away after searching the area around Yingtian.

After hearing this, Duoduo said nothing, but just frowned and stared at the map, as if he was carefully weighing the matter in his mind.

For an officer who has only a hundred or a thousand men under his command, he can be considered qualified if he has a certain degree of personal bravery and familiarity with tactics.

If you can also use tactics flexibly, it can be called excellent.

But for a commander like Duoduo who has hundreds of thousands of troops under his command, these are not the key points that determine his ability to command troops.

Take the current situation for example, half of the troops have already penetrated deep into enemy territory. If any accident occurs, Duoduo will be their only way of retreat.

Therefore, from this perspective, the troops left behind must focus on safety.

But looking at it from another angle, the shortage of civilian laborers is bound to slow down the progress of the siege, and the slow progress of the siege will bring huge pressure on logistics supply.

If the time is delayed for too long, the supply will certainly be unsustainable. By then, let alone attacking the city, I am afraid that hundreds of thousands of troops will disperse in a short time.

Therefore, considering from this perspective, recruiting civilians as soon as possible has become a top priority.

Well, a contradiction has arisen. To recruit civilians, the remaining troops must be dispersed. However, according to the current situation, let's not talk about how many people should be dispersed. Even if all the remaining troops are dispersed, can we definitely recruit enough strong men?

Judging from the information Duoduo had, Yingtian's will to resist was extremely firm. It could be inferred that even if other places in Jiangnan were not as strong as Yingtian, they would not arrive before the army and the letter of surrender as happened in Jiangbei.

According to this situation, if too many of the remaining troops were dispersed, the camp would be left empty, but if too few were dispersed, the camp might be entangled by the Ming army outside.

If someone from Yingtian takes advantage of the situation and attacks again, these hundreds of thousands of troops may be trapped and killed in Jiangnan.

The surrendered troops were fine, since there were more Han people, they could just be recruited again. However, if the more than 30,000 Eight Banners were damaged, it would shake the foundation of the Qing Dynasty. "Your Majesty, I have something to report."

Just when Duoduo was in a dilemma, the only surrendered general in the tent said something timidly.

"explain."

"Your Majesty, although Jiangbei has experienced some wars, the population is still not small, so it's better to..."

Although Cao Hu was only a deputy general, he had a lot of men under his command. During the time Duoduo was thinking, he had roughly figured out what the prince was hesitating about.

In his opinion, going out to recruit civilians would indeed involve great risks, but his views on risks were subtly different from Duoduo's.

If they go out to recruit civilians, they will have to fight, and they, the surrendered soldiers, will definitely take the lead in the war. Then he will have to bear the brunt of the consequences, while all the benefits will fall into the pockets of others. It would be better to recruit civilians from Jiangbei, which would save time and effort.

Honestly speaking, at this point he had no choice but to serve the Qing Dynasty wholeheartedly.

What's more, the Qing army paid their salaries very quickly, and there was no deductions in the middle. Apart from the occasional humiliating remarks from Manchu generals, life was relatively comfortable.

But soldiers are the basis of his livelihood after all. How could this newcomer dare to cause any damage to the strength of his subordinates?
Such thoughts were obvious to Duoduo, but he did not expose it on the spot. He just glanced at him and let Cao Hu kneel on the ground, while he focused his attention on the map again.

On the surface, Jiangbei and Jiangnan are separated by only one river, so recruiting laborers from there is indeed a good choice.

But Duoduo was in charge of all military affairs along the way, and his concerns became more serious.

Thanks to the surrender of several Ming army towns, the land north of the Yangtze River was taken over without any effort. On the one hand, this enabled Duoduo to reach the south of the Yangtze River at an extremely fast speed, but on the other hand, Jiangbei, which had not been cleansed, could not be considered stable.

If there was any trouble in Jiangbei due to the large-scale conscription of laborers, not to mention that Cao Hu could not bear the responsibility, even Duoduo would probably be reprimanded.

Of course, the punishment for Cao Hu was just to kneel for a while. After all, he was a newly joined soldier, so it was normal for him to have some concerns.

The Qing Dynasty had accepted countless surrendered soldiers and generals since Nurhaci. Although the Jurchens did not treat them as human beings at first, after so many years, they had found many ways to make them return to their hearts.

Duoduo believed that as long as the Qing Dynasty could maintain this momentum and reward those who made contributions and punish those who made mistakes, he would definitely have a few more powerful armies under his command.

After several turns of thought, Duoduo still couldn't think of a way to have the best of both worlds. Just when he was about to choose the lesser of two evils, he heard someone outside the tent report.

"Your Majesty, Lord Beile has sent someone here."

"pass!"

A moment later, a dusty soldier entered the military tent under the gaze of the generals, but after greeting them, he just remained kneeling with his fists clasped, and was unwilling to say even a word.

Seeing this, everyone knew that Nikan had received important military intelligence, and they all went out of the tent without waiting for Duoduo to speak.

At this time, the soldier said, "Your Highness, someone in Huang Degong's army wanted to kidnap the fake emperor and surrender, but the conditions they proposed were beyond the authority of the prince, so I was sent back to the camp to report."

(End of this chapter)